Renault Sport chief Jean-Michel Jalinier has revealed that some of the teams that it supplies have failed to make their payments on time, putting the French marque’s engine programme on the back foot.

The beginning of the year has been difficult for Renault in the wake of the move to turbocharged V6 power units. The teams that it supplies – Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Lotus and Caterham – all encountered problems during pre-season with their engines, and there was a definitive power difference between the Renault engines and its rivals, Mercedes and Ferrari.

Although a great deal of the criticism has been put against Renault, Jalinier explained how payment problems have began to bite.

“In order to develop the action plan we need the resources, and our resources are coming from two sources,” he explained. “One is Renault, with financial resources or human resources, and the other part of it is coming from the teams, because we are selling the engines to the teams.

“On this part I must say we are not at an acceptable situation, because some of the teams are just late in payment, and at the time that you spend resources in order to catch up you cannot afford to have those non-payments.”

Jalinier is concerned about what Renault can do from here on in such are the payment problems.

“It is a serious concern,” he said. ” We can live with it up to a certain point. We are developing, we are putting money into the business, we need to get our resources.”

The financial concerns in Formula 1 have been a big talking point in recent weeks, with many still keen on introducing a cost cap in the near future. However, when the knock-on effect is beginning to seep into the engine manufacturers, and subsequently the teams they supply that have been prompt with their payments, it is a particularly dire situation.

I’m sure Red B.S. Racing and other Renault powered teams who have paid for their engine contracts are not at all concerned about the backmarkers who don’t belong in F1 at all and who have not paid Renault properly. While no Biz wants to get jerked around for payment like Farce India has done in the past, Renault should have known full well that some of the customers might not even make it to the grid for ’14 and that they were not credit worthy and thus have required pre-payment all season long.